Monkey* Fridays

We're not sure whether this will be a permanent trend here at IT, but we did feel that it was important to share the recently released news that the new baby gorilla at Washington's National Zoo is a girl! (Pause here for a collective awwww....) David Braun at the Nat Geo News Watch blog reports:

Thus far, Mandara [the mother] and her baby girl are adapting to their new lives as Zoo celebrities and seem to be unfazed by the attention they're receiving from the crowds of visitors flocking to the Great Ape House.

You can watch a video of the keeper offering an update on the baby here. Visiting the zoo in our nation's capital is free (and it's just one of the many, many free things to do here) so it might be one more reason to plan a visit.

And in more monkey news, there's also now a video of the chimp rescue we wrote about last week. In it, Emerging Explorer Jill Pruetz talks about the rescue, and we get to see baby Aimee live in action. Here's to monkey Fridays!

*Ok, we know that the technical term is "great apes" instead of monkeys. But monkey Fridays just has such a nice ring to it!

Photo: Meghan Murphy, Smithsonian's National Zoo